We need to teach children how to be powerful

Embodying your power makes you less dangerous.

It’s hard to look back in life and realize that I wasn’t seen as a victim, I was seen as a threat. People worked hard to try to take my power away. It’s basically victimhood but played out through a sort of attempt to equalize.

Adults would frame it as “they’re jealous of you”, but that never felt convincing. It’s not that they’re jealous of me, it’s that they’re scared of me. It’s not that they want to be me, it’s that they don’t want me being myself.

The adults couldn’t say “they’re scared of you” because that’s revealing too much… and also giving a child too much power. So even the adults worked to contain me and keep me from my true self.

They didn’t recognize my power and they didn’t give me the space I needed to coexist with others.

Only now in my 40s am I coming to terms with my power and the good it can do. When you embody the power people can actually cope with it. When you do not, it feels dangerous. Adults (namely people other than my parents) did not help me to understand and manage my power, and I spent much of my life being seen as dangerous in various ways.

Yes, I was holding back for decades. What’s scarier than a clearly capable person holding back? It’s unsettling.

The less I hold back, the more space I find where I am allowed to be myself because people can see that I am where I am supposed to be.